XaviThinks: Education in India

History is a Mystery in India

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 13:11:00 +0530

I was pondering over this for a few days and felt that I should write a post on it. Its a universal fact that a lot of students in their school days struggled with history. Some even found it boring. Even I felt the same but my perception about history has changed over the years.

None of us hates history, we actually hate the way it is taught. We don't realize this fact and think that we hate the subject. If you remember how we were told in school about Neanderthals, Homo-sapiens .etc. somewhere around fourth grade. We were told in brief of about how humans evolved from monkeys and for some reason were rushed through all the related topics. The only things that were stressed on were the invention of fire and wheel. Somehow we kept on muttering homo-sapiens, fire and wheel throughout fourth grade. It was much later on that we dived into the detail of how life started on earth (probably in 6th grade). We learnt about how algae developed in a primordial soup in the sea and then single celled organisms came into being and then multi-celled creatures evolved and after millions of years they came on land. However, for God knows what reason 'what were these multi-celled animals?' was totally ignored in the school syllabus and neither did teacher tell us about them. It was over the years (seeing encyclopedias) that I came to know about these creatures. These multi-celled creatures include squids,pre-historic crustaceans, horse-shoe crab .etc.

I would like to stress on the horse-shoe crab because it is an animals which is estimated to date back 450 million years and it still lives with us. Now you may say that what use is this crab to us? Yes it is. It is the blue blood of this creature which is used to test our medicines for contamination. Because the blood of this animal is very sensitive to contamination, we humans pick them up from the beaches, take their blue blood and dump them back exhausted on the beach, sometimes even picking up the same crab, in the process causing possible death. We were never told about these creatures in history lessons. I once saw them in Pokemon when I was small but felt that they were fiction. It was later on that I realized that they were real and actually live since much before us. If I had not seen this following documentary I would have never known what big a favor it does on human-kind. I suggest you have a look at it and then you too will truly say softly deep down in your heart "Thank you little crab".

"The education system just focuses on human achievements and not on sacrifices"

It can be noted that our school history directly jumps from algae in the sea to monkeys and homo-sapiens. Where is the evolution in between? Why no mention about these guys?....
(Source: Jurassic Park)
....and related species from which they evolved. It is said that we have lived on earth for 1 million years. Comparatively, dinosaurs were here for at least 165 million years. So this planet belongs to them more than it belongs to us. As a kid these creatures always fascinated me. I used to wonder how would it be like seeing one in flesh and blood. (Inside a cage obviously) I just marveled at their body structure and how they must have evolved. I used to every year open my history book at the start of the academic year thinking 'Yes! Surely this year we will learn about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals' but no, every year we just learnt about fire, wheel, and then in later years Harappa-Mohenjodaro .etc. I literally felt like tearing my history book one year when I saw a dinosaur on the outer cover and inside there was homo-sapiens. Learning about them would prepare us to answer when kids ask us 'Why did dinosaurs die millions of years ago?' It reminds me of this famous dialogue from the movie Jurassic Park which goes like this, "Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?" In short, we never learnt in detail what the following diagram shows:

It was seen as extra-curricular, something which you are expected to read about from encyclopedias and not text-books. We never learnt what Pleistocene epoch was. We never knew what Mesozoic era was. We didn't know how many mass extinctions had taken place on earth and how they happened. We were never taught how various animals evolved over the ages. Like did you know that the whale was actually a hyena like animal millions of years ago which lived on land. An article from Berkeley explains it. There is an animation also to demonstrate it.
(Source: Berkeley)
These are very important in understanding which are the strengths of animals and how they have evolved over the ages to behave. (It may come handy when confronted by a wild animal as you know what to do and what to definitely not do. It also helps in conservation of species) After homo-sapiens and hom-erectus our syllabus goes on to tell about Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. This is one very good thing that our syllabus teaches us. These civilizations were indeed ahead of their times and we can learn a bounty of things about town planning from them. However, there is a need to stress on what we can learn from them and not how many marks we will get by writing about them in the exams. A lot is written about them in text books and I will not detail about them here.
Post Harappa-Mohenjo Daro, our history directly jumps to the Mughal empire. There are very small bits and pieces about other empires like the Maratha empire and that of Ashoka. Many a time these were summarized into one lesson or just one page. Because I was schooled in Maharashtra, the Mughal empire and the Maratha empire were taught with a bit more detail. Apart from these, there were other great empires too, some of which can be found in Prashast Jain's answer on Quora, which is an elaborate depiction of the glorious empires we missed out on. This answer is a part of many answers written for the question: What are some things every Indian should know about Indian history? (also see detailed articles on Wikipedia about Medieval India) When we were told that Ashoka was a great king in Indian history, we used to wonder what great deed did he do to humanity? Why does India give him such great honour that we have the Ashoka chakra on the tricolour? He was just another person who left this worldly life and took on the path of Buddha. This because a big lesson was put forward in front of us with all his triumphs, wealth, commerce .etc. etc. etc. and at the end of the lesson in just two lines it was written that Ashoka after the Kalinga war had a change of heart at the end of the Kalinga war. This is the actual reason why Ashoka is so famous. His change of heart at the end of the war is a very important account of history showing that indeed a human can change for the good at any point in time. (read another article on Ashoka's change of heart) It is this moment of self-realization and raw emotion of 'I will do good now onwards' that our text-books and history teachers should have dealt with in detail and gentleness. But instead the focus was on 'Students mark this point for a question on why did Ashoka embrace Buddhism? It is an important question and come every year in the exam'. It is when we humans see emotion related to history, we are affected psychologically and strive for good.

"History is not about remembering dates, its about remembering emotions"

After this the history some how fast forwards to the East India company and India's freedom struggle. Obviously, Indians should learn about the freedom struggle of their forefathers. However, textbooks don't tell much about the Dutch, Danish, French and Portuguese Indian colonies. Considering the fact that a growing number of young Indians are taking interest in French cuisine. And by history of other colonies I don't mean 'India drove out the ........ in the year ........ India was given back ........ colonies in the year .......'. What it should mention is the standard of living of people in these colonies, which rules were more favourable for economic development .etc. The other day I was scratching my head when I saw a documentary about the Dutch colony of India. I was wondering 'Did we learn about the Dutch having a colony in India?' I must have read about it but could not just remember because our text-books only mention about Britain. Apart from these there was very little importance given to world history. We know nothing about the Greeks apart from 'Democracy started in Greece'. We know nothing about the Greco-Persian wars (a part of which is the plot for the movie 300). We didn't learn much about Ancient Egypt.We also know very little about US history. This especially when a lot of Indians are opting to go to the US for a MS. I can only imagine an Indian student going there and when an American says 'Hey today is so-and-so day', the Indian counterpart will probably say 'Err.... I'm sorry I don't know about it. Can you tell me about it? I will check it up on the net later'. Learning about world history helps us understand and respect other cultures. We did learn a bit about the Middle Ages but whether to deem it as satisfactory knowledge? I don't know. We however, did dive into detail about the renaissance and to some extent the industrial revolution.
We also learnt to some extent about the world wars. (Each war summarized within a few pages) Mostly about only key events in the wars. There is an awesome three episode documentary by the History channel called The World Wars which depicts a lot of the events in new light and keeps people engrossed with its cool screenplay. It depicts the emotions and happenings that shaped the leaders of the wars. How passion and patriotism lead to a revolution and rage and ego lead to the demise of an empire. One of the episodes tells a marvelous tale (authenticity is still a matter of debate) of how Hitler during the first world war had a close shave with death. Hitler was injured and had a standoff with a soldier called Henry Tandey. Tandey had a clear shot at his head. Being injured, Hitler didn't even bother to lift up his own rifle in retaliation. Hitler had given up on living at this point. (imagine what a heart-broken Hitler would look like) Tandey had his finger on the trigger but just could not press it. He had mercy on Hitler as he was injured and both went their ways, Hitler waving at him in appreciation. Imagine what world history would have been had Tandey pressed the trigger. And Hitler too did not take advantage and fire one in Tandey's back. I can imagine all day long what emotion those two must have had on their faces. Priceless! (read more about this on Wikipedia) Here is a trailer of The World Wars:

These emotions, feelings and aspirations I feel, are the main reason what we should learn from history. Which aspirations lead to development and which aspirations lead to destruction can only be learnt from the examples our forefathers set for us. Apart from this what this TV show teaches us is that videos are the best and most effective way to learn history. Nowadays there are videos, documentaries, shows and movies about almost every historic event, culture and revolution. It should be leveraged to teach history to kids in a more meaningful and fun way. Let me remind you again that history is not about remembering dates but about significance of those dates.

"Tell me, I'll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me, I'll understand"

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Cafe Teacher's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 4 Sep 2013 17:27:00 +0530

This post dosent mean to show people of different regions in bad light based on their coffee they drink, considering that people are passionate about their coffee. Rather the post is based on the ingredients used in these coffees. It also not meant to be directed against teachers and is just a light-hearted post.

I remember how on Teacher’s Day special in school our teachers used to take the day off and the school would have a party for them from the money we used to contribute. We used to be in a real huff and puff saying that ‘Why do we have to pay for the party of people who giving us home-work’ not knowing that teachers are the real assets of our society and teaching is not kid’s play. I remember being sent on CR duty when I was in 11^th Std. to handle 2^nd Std. students on Teacher’s Day which I would say was a disaster. But I would say after spending so many years in school and college I have noticed that there are certain types of teachers which you can broadly classify into a few categories.

Here I have compared the personalities of teachers with a few well known coffees based on their ingredients. This has nothing to do with the region of the coffees and neither is this to show teachers in bad light. So here they are:

Some of the names are in Portugese/Spanish

Key: Leite - Steamed Milk

Chantily – Whipped Cream for Mocha and Milk Foam for the rest

Crème – Cream

Canela – Cinnamon

Run - Rum

· Espresso: This type of teacher is the one who always expresses himself or you can say is an Expresso. They like to keep the command of things in their hand and are the ones that the students dread the most. Female teachers of this type will have biceps of 14” and may even catch your collar. Although this type of teacher looks mean, he/she will have very little anger from inside i.e. they are rough from the outside but from the inside may be very considerate.

· Americano: This type has the least knowledge of the subject but knows very well how to dodge questions of students and finish the syllabus without teaching even an ounce about the subject. But they have a very good tact of going on for hours and hours without actually imparting knowledge. So as to say they dilute whatever little knowledge they have and present it in a nice new package to students.

· Macchiato: This type of teacher wants the things to be done in a set procedure as s/he instructs. They will have a neat time-table of aim-procedure-observation-conclusion and expect everyone to work only according to that. Only they dictate the pace and expect everyone to move along with them. They do not like students who stand aside from the situation and question them with: ‘Why are we doing this?’, ‘Is it necessary?’ and ‘Can we do it that way?’ To this they answer ‘You do how much is asked of you. Don’t try to use your own brain. Understood?’ Some teachers of this type do only what is written in the syllabus point to point and avoid anything outside it. Their main aim is only to ‘Cover the Portion’.

· Espresso Panna: This type of teacher will be your greatest enemy until you start admiring them for every A-B-C-D they do. They will do all you want if they hear from your mouth that they are good and do good for the students. You can easily maneuver them and get your work done praising them and not letting them know that you are putting them maska.

· Arabe: These are the young new teachers who want to make a name for them and basically want recognition. For this they put in their extra effort to surpass their peers. People may think that they are showing-off but that’s a very crude word for them because after all it is human to thirst for recognition.

I remember one of our school teachers telling us that he used to set tough papers when he was new in the profession. This was so that people may take notice of him and he may be rewarded for the knowledge he has. But he said that once experience set in he understood that you have to be considerate about students and give them something easy to munch on.

· Doble/Doppio: This type of teacher will not express like your normal expresso. But will accumulate what they notice about the students and show them a mirror of what they think about the students in their marks. This type is a very formidable force and one whose path you should never cross.

· Cortado/Leite/Lagrima: You must have seen these teachers in you school years. These types of teachers of teachers come with varying goodness and have varying power to bear the mischief of students. Once the threshold barrier is crossed calamity strikes.

· Caribenho: They are the ones who always live in the past. They like to make comparisons with themselves and the youngsters today. They will stress on what morals youngsters can learn from their teaching. They will always project today’s generation inferior as compared to them. While teaching too they will use ‘flashback’ technique. They basically think that today’s generation is useless.

· Cappuccino & Latte: Latte is a person who will always guide the students and will be always present to overlook the progress of kids. They may guide you at each step or may show you the way for you to walk on it. They will try to teach the kids in steps and don’t go in a hasty manner.

Cappuccino is an advanced form of Latte and will work more developing the thought process in kids. It may be by giving students wrong info at times so that they encounter mistakes and learn to get around them by themselves. They will guide you but never spoon-feed you.

· Breve: This type of teacher is someone who you can call ‘by the people, for the people’. This teacher will totally mix in the students and will work totally for their betterment. Being very friendly in their approach and one with whom we can talk with on the same level like a friend. Some of them may even oppose their fellow teachers in some matters.

· Mocha: This type of teacher is the one whom we met in school and will never forget. You know like, the very sweet female teacher who treated us like her children (Never getting angry on her students). But if you met such a being, you must have guaranteed taken wrong advantage of the freedom given by them at least once.

· Submarino: This type of teacher is the usual khayali pulao of the lot. They will always engulf you in their philosophies (half of which you cannot digest or even swallow). While teaching too they will start off with some other topic based on a small word which has no relation with the subject and then talk for hours on it. But one thing about them is they have very deep knowledge of the subject they teach (U can say they submerge themselves in the ocean of knowledge and are still thirsty for more). They always believe that the thirst for knowledge ends only when life ends.

· Irlandes: The moodiest of the lot is this type of teacher yet not as deceptive as Amaretto. Their mood swings without caution and all you can do is anticipate the right time to approach them. They will be very good one instant and shower you with graces and then turn into a hurricane the next instant. So, handle with care because the progress you do under them depends on how well you handle them.

· Caramelo Macchiato: This is a very sweet person whom very few respect. You don’t have to praise this kind to get your work done. Even if you don’t respect them, they will surely respect you. Even the highest insult will not make them angry and they never keep anything in mind. They are always peace loving and try to mind their own business. We don’t realize how good they are unless after many years, at the reunion everyone asks just one question: ‘Hey where is so-and-so Sir? Is he retired? I wanted to thank him for all the respect he gave us. I’ve understood outside school/college that the world doesn’t respect even if you give it respect. And this person used to respect us even after all we did to him. ’

· Hawaiano: This type of teacher is least bothered about their responsibility as a teacher. They teach-go home-come back-teach-…. Working like machines without putting their head around it. All they are bothered is their salary slip and are not interested in imparting knowledge. They are bothered about the future of students and don’t put in effort to update their knowledge. This lack of interest is irrespective of whether they have or don’t have good knowledge of the subject.

· Amaretto: This type is similar to the Irlandes but is more dangerous because you can be caught unawares by their deceptive looks. You may approach them thinking they are the usual kind, soft spoken teacher but will be in for a rude shock when you get more than you bargained for.

· Quitafrio: They are the angriest person you have ever met. They are frustrated in life for god knows what? And will make you regret being a student. They will sting you in the face, in public and in your mark-sheet. They will never be happy with anything and will remove mistakes in everything. They hold students responsible for every wrong that happens around them. They are different from the Irlandes and the Amarettos which are much better than them. Basically it is difficult to explain one rather it is better to go and experience one for yourself.

Whoever they may be and however they may be, teachers play a very important role in society. And that role is of making futures bright. I heard this somewhere and would like to iterate it: ‘Education and teachers are the bricks and cement of our society. A country giving less importance to these takes little time to crumble to dust.’

A student can put in all his effort but can never give back anything comparable to what a good teacher has ever given him.

Reminding you again that this post dosent mean to show people of different regions in bad light based on their coffee they drink, considering that people are passionate about their coffee. Rather the post is based on the ingredients used in these coffees. It also not meant to be directed against teachers and is just a light-hearted post.

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Educate to Donate (or vice versa)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 6 Aug 2013 13:17:00 +0530

In today's Indian society parents are willing to shell out money for their kid's bright future. And the educational institutions are very much ready to cash in on this opportunity.

Whether it's Government or non-Government, the institution will make no hesitation in asking money irrespective of their accreditation and status. I remember talking to a school teacher of a well reputed Government aided school in my childhood. Me and some of my friends in our inquisitiveness asked why their school takes donations from parents to which she answered: "I know you little kids want to put everything straight and are very much aware of such things happening but, this is how the system works and nobody can challenge it" ('System' a very important word whose meaning we didn’t understand then in the closed environs of our school but has now become a staple in our day-to-day language). This teacher further pointed out that the aid they get from the authorities is totally spent in the salaries of all the teachers and non-teaching staff. There are no funds left for development, sports activities and other works. Now if this is the case with Government aided institutions then you will very much know how private institutions beat the heat. But this brings up a very important point of 'Does one evil kill another evil?'

If this is the situation with schools one will wonder what about higher studies? The situation here gets even worse. Those who get admissions based on their marks should consider themselves lucky because if not you got to shell out a hell lot of money. The average medical parent (it is parent not student because it is ‘Baap ka paisa’) spends approx. 30-35 lakhs, the normal engineering parent spends from 2-15 lakhs, a premium engineering parent (aeronautical, petroleum etc.) may spend up to 20 lakhs and for MBA……… you do the guesswork. With the number of graduates coming out of technical colleges increasing to over 7,00,000

in 2011 from 550,000 in 2010, this is surely a big industry in India.
Consider a situation wherein the parents of a certain student know that they have to pay donation. The entire family comes to the college together as if they were on a family picnic. Now there are two types of parents:

· We can spend money type- They have bigger bank balances and will come in a concentrated group of mother, father and sibling. Will be in very decent clothes and either the mother or father will surely be wearing glares. They can spend as much as you ask them and will not shy away from showing their status.

· We have no other option type- They don’t have higher spending power and will try to do the usual compromise with the admin of the office. They will either be only the father accompanying the student of the entire extended family (cousins, uncles, aunts etc.) with them. They will come in the simplest of clothes and wear little or no ornaments.

The reception in a college will always guide them towards the admin of the office and students coming for an enquiry for the amount of donation without their parents are not always welcomed. When the parents enter the office and turn around to get their chairs the admin officer will x-ray scan them and estimate how much donation they have to pay within a split second. This is a spontaneous process and they have mastered it really well. The parents will try then to relate and get out every possible ounce of influence to befriend the admin (who can never be fooled). When it is the time for disclosing the amount the very cheerful admin gets dead serious and lowers his /her voice to tell the amount so that unimportant students roaming outside might not get a clue of the price asked. Once a price is finalized the parents say that most unnecessary statement: ‘Sir, please take care of our child. We are leaving him in your care.’ To which the admin smiles and says that he is his own kid and assures them not to worry at all. But in reality the admin and the student actually do not come together on friendly terms for the entire duration of the course and sometimes will fail to recognize each other in case they bump into each other someday. After the meeting you will find the not so rich father in one corner of the college scolding his wife for wearing too much jewelry or his son for opening his mouth for no reason.

At least now-a-days there is less anxiety due to the fact that you can directly approach the college for donation. A few years ago when everything was done through agents and speaking in the college office about donation was a big taboo knowing that you have been coned of your precious savings was a real heartburn. The word donation itself evokes a lot of humour among students. When students make new friends in college they do ask how much the other got in their entrance exam. If the marks are low they directly ask the other ‘Management? ya 2^nd/3^rd round?’ If the answer sounds like a good deal they say ‘Sahi re!’ else they tell of a certain cousin who got it done in a much smaller budget. I remember how when I was filling my centralized admission form I had struck a friendship with the guys of another college standing in the line with me. We saw a guy with his father standing outside the line and showing their documents to one of the official after which we started dubbing their every sentence.

Sir we had contacted you about the admission, remember? Oh, yes! Have you brought the money? Here it is Sir (unzipping the bag and removing out a few docs).Oh shit, Papa! We brought the wrong bag. The bag containing the money is at home. What do you think this is a joke or something? I am an official in so and so college. Now you have to double the amount in donation and that too at my residence up to so and so date.

Donation is really a subject of gossip in colleges and ways to pay it will get hi-tech in a few days. I can imagine a college banner in the street in a few years from now asking you to download their mobile app to pay donation through net-banking.

I have told you about the vice in the title of this post. Now let’s check the versa in it. Yes my friends the most important lesson of them all (but which gets least attention) is the art of giving. There is a lot of scope to improve someone’s life if we have the will to do it. Actually it is very difficult to teach grown-ups about charity and let me tell you frankly that I (an unemployed person) have not done much to improve someone’s life. But I do believe that I will do something for the poor in my life-time. Having said this it is still not impossible to teach our kids about charity. I remember how Aamir Khan on his talk show (Satyamev Jayate) had said that when a kid comes home his parents ask him how much he got in his class test. Aamir stressed that instead parents must ask the child if he helped someone in class today, whether he shared his stationary with someone today etc. This inculcates a sense of responsibility towards others and someday may give us new philanthropists. The question of choosing between setting up a hospital or a school for the poor is asked in many talent hunts and beauty pageants to check the inner self of a person. The contestants many a time answer correctly because they have read it somewhere or have Google ed it. But the answer that ‘if you heal people, you heal a few but if you teach a few how to heal, they will heal many’ has a much deeper meaning.

The ‘Donate to Educate’ scenario I think will continue for a long time to come in India but we can certainly teach our children to ‘Educate to Donate’.

I hope you liked my views on this particular topic and if after reading it you will ask your kid whom s/he helped in school today then this post has done what it was written for.

To end this post on a lite note, here is a hilarious take on tensions taking place due to donation in a future family (this is a video of AIB):

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